The UC personal statement prompts change every few years; if they were to change, it will usually happen by late summer, before September. Make sure you check the current personal statement prompts before starting your personal statement.

I strongly encourage you to follow some kind of writing process. While a personal statement is not your regular English paper, it should, at the very least, have a central idea, evidence to support the idea, and transition from paragraph to paragraph.

Prompt 1 for Transfer Applicants

UCs expect you to have good grades and demonstrate interest in your field of study. There are three places on the application for you to tell the UCs how you have pursued your field of study with a passion: Academic History (coursework in your field of study), Activities & Awards (extracurricular activities in your field of study), and the Personal Statement. Your job is to use the Personal Statement to paint a picture for the application evaluators on how you have progressively pursued your interest through your coursework and extracurricular activities and that you are well prepared for advanced studies in your field at the UC level.

Make sure you respond to the prompt fully and address 1) your intended major (if you are choosing very different majors at different UC campuses, indicate the majors and be sure to address the reason behind your choices as well as the relationship you see between those majors); 2) how you became interested in the field; 3) any experience you had in that field (academic coursework, research, student clubs, internships, work experience, etc.); and 4) what you have learned from those experiences.

While it is extremely important for you to demonstrate some sort of involvement in your field of study, what happens if you have few or no extracurriculars to show? Well, what the UCs really want to know from Prompt 1 is that you have a full understanding of the field you are getting into and that there aren't any surprises when you start your upper division study. So even if you have few or no "real world" experience in your field of study, you need to make a compelling case to the application evaluators as to why you want to study your field, what you want to do with a degree in that field, and why you know the field is the right for you.

Prompt 2 for All Applicants

Prompt 2 is a way for you to showcase something about yourself that makes you stand out from your peers. You can do that by discussing a personal quality, talent, accomplishment, contribution or experience (pq/t/a/c/e for short). Make sure you cover 1) why this pq/t/a/c/e is important to you; 2) why you are proud of this pq/t/a/c/e; and 3) what the pq/t/a/c/e says about you as an individual. You may also consider discussing how this pq/t/a/c/e will help you succeed in college. Again, the main focus of your essay should be on YOU; what makes you different from other applicants, who you are as a person (beyond your grades and test scores), and what interests you have. You can also think of Prompt 2 as a commercial spot for yourself. What would be the theme of the commercial? What clips from your life would be featured in the commercial?